


never enough (counting down to you)

by nineofcupsnpc, zhuzhting



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineofcupsnpc/pseuds/nineofcupsnpc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhting/pseuds/zhuzhting
Summary: All his life Wenjun has only known numbers. He thought maybe Zhengting would change that. (He doesn’t)Or, Wenjun can see numbers counting down to when people are going to die. Zhengting’s numbers are the hardest to look at.✧ ✧ ✧Prompt:#98: "Wenjun can see numbers above everyone's head. Sometimes they go up, sometimes they go down depending on what choice they make. Later on he realizes it's everybody's life span.He wants to spend his life with Zhengting until he's as old as the number above his head, except, the moment they start dating, Zhengting's life span decreases further and further.Today it's at twenty three, and it's just a week away from that.He doesn't know what to do."





	never enough (counting down to you)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was the hardest thing to write and i hope you guys hate (love) it as much as I do. wenjun reads the timer like Year•Days•Hours•Minutes•Seconds

Numbers had always been a vague concept for Wenjun. He had been seeing them before he even knew what they meant. He never trifled with the idea of them meaning anything more than that, they existed and so did he.

He mentions it one day to his mom, pointing up to above her head and asking her why they were there.

“What are you talking about, baby?” Her eyebrows are furrowed in confusion as he insists there are numbers floating above her head, hanging like a blade on a guillotine.

“They’re there.” He insists weakly, eyes watering when his mom just gets a panicked look in her eye.

His mom gets up with her hand already dialing his father and she tells him to wait there.

He hears her worriedly talking about their  _ seven-year-old son who is seeing things, I think we need to take him to the doctor. _

Wenjun is quick enough to understand that he should never speak of it to anyone, and his mom never mentions it to him again. Occasionally she looks him over with worried glances that Wenjun pretends he doesn’t see.

 

* * *

 

His parents are going out on a trip and Wenjun is scared.

Wenjun looks up at his mom.

_ 45•253•13•53•07 _

He’s nine when he first truly realizes what they mean.

“Your aunt will be here soon to take care of you.” His mom says, hand on his head and a warm smile that Wenjun bottles up in his heart. “Be good and don’t give her a hard time.” Wenjun was always a good kid, he never asked for anything or cried. His aunt adored him.

“Don’t go.” He pleads.

Hesitation flickers in her eyes before she seems to steel herself with a sigh.

_ 0•0•5•36•21 _

She kneels down and cups his face. “I’ll just be gone for a few days,” she says, wiping away his tears, “your dad and I will be back before you know it.”

He lets out another hiccup and the numbers flicker.  _ 45•7•253•13•51•04.  _ “Please.”

His mom glances up once at his dad, eyebrows furrowed but he simply shakes his head and the numbers flicker again.  _ 0•0•0•5•34•14 _

“I’m sorry, baby,” she hugs him and he never wants to let go. “We’ll make it up to you, okay?”

Panic forces itself into Wenjun’s throat and fills his lungs. He can’t speak and he watches his mom look back at him again before leaving. The trip is just going to be for a few days. He convinces himself of his, hammers it down into his psyche until he understands.

His dad pats him on the shoulder. “Take care of your brother.” He says. “We’ll be home soon.”

Wenjun nods even though he’s unable to contain his sniffles. Numbers hover over his dad’s head.  _ 41•6•172•32•29 _

Wenjun watches them leave with a clenched fist and his heart lodged in his throat.

It’s 7 hours later when there’s a sound at his door and he opens it to see his aunt with tears stains streaking down her cheeks and words that shake him to his very core.

His mom was dead.

Their car has crashed and she was the only casualty. She had died just 5 hours 32 minutes and 14 seconds after she had said her last words to Wenjun.

Wenjun closes his eyes and doesn’t open them for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

He’s 13 when he understands that numbers could change.

He watches as a child crosses the street, blissfully unaware of the dangers of automobiles.

_ 00•00•00•00•16 _

He should do something, he thinks, but his legs remain frozen and his breathing stops for a second before someone else gets there first.

The numbers flicker.  _ 77•10•09•13•14 _

The man across the street clutches the child close to his chest and Wenjun wishes he could no longer look.

 

* * *

 

“You seem lonely sitting here all by yourself.” A shy smile, a little too perfect, long lashes brushing over cheeks and perfect teeth biting lips.

Wenjun is entranced, he doesn’t even notice the numbers above his head. “I’m okay,” he gets out, hoping the flush doesn’t rise to his cheeks. The way the other blinks at him all pleased and smug tells him otherwise. “I’m fine like this.”

“Well aren’t you the cold and mysterious type,” he teases, ducking his head down to get a good look at Wenjun’s face. “That’s so terribly boring though.”

He stretches out a hand. “I’m Zhengting.” 

Wenjun tries not to be smitten already. “Wenjun.” He says, Zhengting’s hand warm in his.

He doesn’t glance once at the numbers hanging over Zhengting’s head.

 

* * *

 

Wenjun is very much aware of their presence.

They were quite literally hanging over Zhengting’s head. In spite of this, he refused to look, refused to acknowledge the some 70 years Zhengting had to live because always knowing made him scared.

“What are you looking at?” Zhengting smiled, all warm and pretty.

Wenjun looks away with a shrug of his shoulders. “We should get going.” He packs up his stuff, feels Zhengting do the same. “Justin’s waiting for us.”

Zhengting had forced him out, made him find friends with his friends and Wenjun tries not to think to hard about how Xinchun is going to die 5 years before anyone else, or how Justin is going to die just months before Zhengting does. Seeing Zhengting treat his friends like his own flesh and blood, he’s afraid of sticking around long enough to see that happen.

Sometimes he wonders if he would live long enough to see that happen, wonders what the numbers above his head would look like. Yet the place above his head remains blank, not even the painful zeroes that float above the dead and into Wenjun’s psyche, digging deep and burrowing a home into his heart.

HIs mom was a mound of zeros, he remembers.

“Sometimes you get this look in your eye,” Zhengting has his face tilted up at the sky as he walks, looking at the clouds. “It’s like you’re looking at me but you don’t actually see me.”

Wenjun doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Zhengting looks back at him. “It’s just a thought.” Zhengting says with a smile that says that it’s so much more than that.

Sad and strained around the corners, it was an expression Wenjun hadn’t seen on Zhengting before.

Wenjun kisses him before he can even think about it. One of his hands coming up to cradle Zhengting’s face, gentle, precious. It’s clumsy and Wenjun ends up kissing the corner of his lips, but Zhengting meets him, still, somewhere in the middle, always somewhere halfway, waiting for Wenjun to reach out. It was an attempt, maybe, to push away those thoughts from Zhengting’s head, from his own.

Zhengting clutches onto his hair like a lifeline, holds on to him like he can’t breathe, inhaling him like smoke.

When he pulls away he holds the sides of Wenjun’s face and Wenjun wonders if he can see numbers above Wenjun’s head because he’s looking at him like he’s about to die.

“I’m looking at only you.” Wenjun forces his eyes not to flicker up, not to check. “It’s always been you.”

Zhengting smiles, leans back up to press his lips against Wenjun’s.

Lies aren’t supposed to taste like a kiss, Wenjun thinks.

 

* * *

 

It starts with a sock. They had begun dating and it wasn’t uncommon for Zhengting to stay in Wenjun’s place until the sun comes up. Wenjun can’t really say he minds.

It’s a sock at first, glaring at Wenjun from where it lays in his laundry basket. He knows it isn’t his because Zhengting likes to wear socks that have tiny animal prints on them and this was a pastel blue sock littered with tiny cat figures lounging around.

Wenjun can’t find the other sock and he doesn’t bother looking for the damned thing.

It starts with a sock and it’s not long that whole outfits join Wenjun’s pile of laundry. Clothes that don’t belong to him and fill the space where his clothes are missing like painted on drywall. 

Zhengting moves in and it seems like the most natural step in their relationship.

Wenjun gets used to waking up with his face is Zhengting’s hair and numbers flooding his vision.

At least, he thinks he’s used to it. 

(It startles him every morning.)

 

* * *

 

It happens once and Wenjun’s feels the earth crumble from under his feet.

They’re seated across from each other, Wenjun’s eyes on the screen of his laptop. They flutter up once, making sure Zhengting is still there, maybe, and the numbers above his head flickers.

Wenjun heart threatens to beat its way out of his chest.

“Is something wrong?” Zhengting is blinking up at him in worry, hand half-outstretched.

“Nothing,” Wenjun looks back up, convinces himself it was his imagination because the numbers haven’t actually fluctuated. He holds Zhengting’s hand in his. “Nothing’s wrong.”

 

* * *

 

_ 68•143•12•35•42 _

Numbers flicker and Wenjun is so very sure of it this time that he’s grasping Zhengting’s shoulders before he realizes what he’s even doing.

_ 64•143•12•34•53 _

Four years. Four years shaved off of Zhengting’s life in a blink of an eye and Wenjun just watched it happen, unable to stop it, unable to turn it back.

“What’s up?” There’s an uncertain laugh in Zhengting’s voice and something akin to fear in his eyes.

Wenjun let’s go, almost pushing himself away like Zhengting was an open flame. “Nothing.” A flush rises to his face.

Zhengting was dying. Zhengting was going to die.

Wenjun wished he could gouge his eyes out.

 

* * *

 

It happens again after that.

_ 58•06•12•34•53 _

“Hey,” Zhengting is leaning down to meet his eyes, brushing away the tears Wenjun didn’t realize were falling down his cheeks. “Hey, what happened?”

Wenjun falls forward, into Zhengting and Zhengting just holds him there, lets Wenjun bury his eyes in his shoulder. 

“I don’t know.” Wenjun says, like a mantra. “I don’t know anything.”

 

* * *

 

Other times it’s just a few days, sometimes it’s whole years. 

He tries his best, to find out what was happening. He racks his mind, exhausting every option, pushing Zhengting away in the process.

He finds a lead in Korea, someone who claims to see numbers and he leaves for a month without Zhengting.

When he comes back with nothing to show for,  Zhengting is waiting for him with open arms and the guilt gnaws at Wenjun.

Then he sees the timer above Zhengting’s head hasn’t changed, and  _ oh,  _ everything seems to click into place for him. 

He was killing Zhengting.

 

* * *

 

Wenjun is selfish.

He’s so very selfish and he was killing the one person he loved the most.

 

* * *

 

Wenjun wakes up one day to in empty bed and a chill settling over his skin.

He carefully makes his way out of the bedroom, eyes sweeping across the empty bed as he pads out into the living area.

He finds Zhengting there, curled up under a blanket on the couch.

The faint light coming from the window of a sun not yet risen rests over half his face. He was awake, staring listlessly at nothing in particular. It was a melancholy he was afraid to interrupt.

Zhengting blinks slowly, suddenly tilting his head back to look at Wenjun with a small smile. He beckons him over with a quiet “good morning”.

“What are you doing here?” Wenjun slowly makes his way over sits on the other side of the couch, scared of touching him.

“Just thinking.” Zhengting hums, voice slightly slurred. 

Wenjun doesn’t respond, lets the silence spread over them like waves washing everything away. The dark, silent room thrums around them, like moments before a storm, and it’s stifling, forces Wenjun to hold his breath.

Zhengting lets out a breath, and it sound heavy, like it takes everything out of him. “There’s something very tiring about all this and I don’t know what it is.”

“Do you regret it?”

Wenjun tries to look at Zhengting, but it’s hard. It’s hard when numbers are the first things his eyes meet. When his eyes automatically seek them out, needing to know Zhengting was still there.

“No,” Zhengting happens a glance at him, sharp, a surety that made it impossible to doubts his sincerety. “Never. Do you?”

“I don’t.” Wenjun’s reply feels so much duller in comparison. “I’m just scared.”

“You’re always so scared.” Zhengting’s unfurling from the blanket then, so that he can turn to face Wenjun fully. “You never tell me what you’re so scared of.”

“The future.” Wenjun admits and it’s not a lie, as much of the truth that he can bear to say.

Zhengting makes a sound in the back of his throat that sounds a lot like a choked sob, but when Wenjun lifts his head to face him, his eyes are crystal clear. “That’s encouraging,” he says, “a real boost of confidence.”

“It’s not you,” and Wenjun let’s a breath out from between his teeth. It was cliched and Zhengting deserved more than that. “It’s me.”

“You’re so dumb.” Zhengting lets out a laugh and maybe it sounds a little wet, but Wenjun wasn’t going to point that out.

“I know,” Wenjun is a coward and he’s selfish. He didn’t want to be that anymore. “I love you.”

Zhengting’s leaning too far into him, all up in his space and not allowing Wenjun air to breathe. “I love you too. So, so much.”

Wenjun was killing him, and he would rather die than watch Zhengting die.

“I’m sorry.” Wenjun whispers and Zhengting’s pressing his lips against his. It tastes like the salt of tears and Wenjun finds himself thinking back to that first time. At least he would no longer have to keep lying.

Zhengting smiles when he pulls away, and it’s so terribly sad, it is. “It’s okay.”

 

* * *

 

Wenjun sees him, once.

On a crosswalk on a rainy day. It’s small and fleeting, a swipe of blue in the distance. It’s the umbrella Wenjun had given him when he realized Zhengting didn’t own one.

He can’t see the number above his head through the rain.

Wenjun swipes away at the moisture in his eyes.

Yeah, it was the rain. 

He doesn’t see Zhengting or the umbrella after that.

 

* * *

 

“Oh,” Justin’s eyes are wide, clearly not expecting to see Wenjun, whether here or at all. HIs eyes suddenly grow sharp. Narrowing down to almost slits. “It’s you.”

“Hello?”

Wenjun expected the animosity. He did, after all, break the heart of Justin’s best friend. What he doesn’t expect is the fist that comes flying towards his cheek. It throws his head to the side, forces the breath out of his lungs more because of the shock than the punch itself. 

“Never come anywhere near any of us ever again.” Justin’s fists are clenched so very tight, Wenjun is sure he’s going to hit him again. “I can’t lose another friend to someone like you.”

“What?”

There’s a ringing in Wenjun’s ears, like sea waves crashing into his psyche again and again.

Justin is breathing heavy, shoulders shaking and heaving due to the force of his sobs.

“What do you mean by that?” And it’s desperate, clutching, wanting, needing. Justin seems so small under his hands, like a child.  “Justin, tell me.”

Justin’s trembling hard, terribly so, like he’s freezing.

“Zhengting is dead.” He says, voice cracking. “Zhengting’s dead and it’s because of you.”

Wenjun’s heart seems to shatter one shard of glass at a time. “That can’t be,” he whispers, stepping back, away from Justin, away from another person he could hurt. “He was supposed to live.”

“It’s been a year,” It was 49 years the last time. Zhengting was supposed to live for 49 more years. “It’s only been a year.”

Justin looks almost sorry for him, now. “Being away from you  _ killed  _ him. He looked like he lost his whole damn world, he was always staring off elsewhere.” The words sound forced out of him, like he was torturing himself with every word. “He didn’t even see the truck coming.”

He laughs then, laughs like he’s dying, like he’s choking in his breath. “He was on his way to your place too.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Wenjun was out of his life. 

Wenjun cuts his hands trying to pick up the pieces of his heart. He’d damned Zhengting.

He had killed him from the day they had met. 

**Author's Note:**

> yo wassup, so i've been gone lately and i apologize for no warning on twitter. i've just been really busy and dying i love u all and i hope you guys enjoy this. i'll be back and better than ever hopefully soon.
> 
> yell at [me](https://twitter.com/zhuzhting)


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